WASHINGTON – Shocking hate crime statistics released by FBI have showed a 67 percent jump in anti-Muslim incidents in 2015, triggering calls to the country leaders to repudiate growing Islamophobia.

“We witnessed a sharp jump in anti-Muslim incidents nationwide last year, with that spike in Islamophobia continuing through 2016 and accelerating after the November 8 election,” Robert McCaw, Government Affairs Director at the Council on American-Islamic-Relations (CAIR), said in a statement sent to AboutIslam.net.

“This unprecedented increase in bigotry of all kinds must be repudiated in the strongest terms possible by all our nation’s leaders, beginning with President-elect Donald Trump.”

Law enforcement agencies across the country reported 257 anti-Muslim incidents in 2015, up nearly 67 percent from the year before, according to FBI data released Monday.

The results are shocking as the last time FBI recorded more than 160 attacks was after 9/11 when it reported 481 anti-Muslim incidents.

Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for CAIR, said that he believed the anti-Muslim rhetoric that came out of the presidential campaign was to blame and that he feared there will be more hate crimes this year.

“Whenever you have one of the nation’s leading public figures in the person of Donald Trump mainstreaming and empowering Islamophobia in the nation, it’s the inevitable result,” he told Washington Post.

On the campaign trail, the president-elect had promised to ban Muslims from entering the United States.

He later backed off from a complete ban, saying his proposal would keep immigrants from countries that have been “compromised by terrorism.”

The surprising election of Donald Trump as America’s 45th president is having its negative impact on American Muslims.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, there have been more than 200 incidents of harassment and intimidation since Trump was elected. Many were directed toward African Americans, immigrants, Muslims and the LGBT community.